From: Brad Templeton (brad@clari.net)
Date: Fri Nov 21 1997 - 19:19:19 CST
Actually, on a Unix system I would still use the short names for
directory names. Unix shells make dealing with spaces in names
difficult, even with filename completion.
The longer descriptions and other information about a group remain
information about a group.
The "pretty name" is different in that it would become the name by which
people refer to the group in general usage, and the thing they would
type substrings of to do groupname completion. The other strings would
not have such an attribute.
My main goals in adding another level of namespace are:
a) To avoid arguments about how to name groups when the name is limited
to a 14 character alphanumeric. (Or even a longer one with punctuation
instead of spaces.) While it's not certain, I contend that if you
could be a little more descriptive in the names, people would not argue.
b) To avoid further argument by removing hiearchy from the name, and
allowing groups to exist on multiple hierarchies. Hierarchies are used
right now for feeding, disk space arrangement, expire and menus of
groups. I contend that their use even in feeding is getting fairly
limited. Sites are not barring "alt" they are blocking "*binaries*".
Better that groups simply get a set of attributes and that these attributes
be used to control feed, expire etc. The menus for browsing groups
can take many forms. Today's group list is so large that browsing
groups within it is difficult.
Of course, groups would still have hierarchies, but they would become
much less important once other mechanisms come into play. The attributes
(which could be distributed by named articles or by people who want to
make attribute lists -- there could be several) would include things
that really matter for feeding and expiring -- group readership, group
volume, presence of binaries, technical or not, blessed by person X.
And of course topic keywords, which could include the current 8
hierarchy definitions and components. But a group would not be limited
to one.
I would be intereseted. How many people feed by hierarchy today,
except perhaps to not talk alt. It seems very few do even that.
c) To allow group names to have non-ASCII characters, a must in the
non-Anglo world.